The Dark Half
by David Knight
Summary: (Set during the second half of the EXE Anime) The Devil Chip's effect on Roll affected her more than she let everyone know. Now she has to deal with it... before it consumes her. (Chapter 2 Uploaded)
1. Chapter 1

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I do not own Rockman/Megaman. It belongs to Capcom. This story takes place after Episode 36 of the Rockman.EXE series, which is in the beginning of the Gospel Saga._****

**The Dark Half  
By David Knight**

**Chapter One: The Dream**

_Pain._

_That was all she could feel right now as the Navis that were concealed in the shadows held her back by her arms tightly. They had forced her into a fight, one she thought would have been one on one. Instead it turned out to be ten on one._

_When they had beaten her down they mocked her, laughed at her and called her a worthless Navi. She was so weak and pathetic they wondered why anyone would ever keep her._

_"Where's your operator? You are still here, right?" one of them sneered at her. "That means you no longer matter to her. She's abandoned you like the worthless garbage you are."_

_"No! You are lying!"_

_"Hahaha! Keep on living in your delusions. You won't be around for much longer," the shadowy Navi sneered at her._

_He snapped his fingers and then she felt the pain across her back, as someone was now whipping her, electronic blood spraying every time the whip landed. Her voice screamed out every time it hit, praying for a miracle to come help her._

_"ROLL-CHAN!!!"_

_She felt her heart leap when she caught sight of her own only hope. "Rockman!" He wasn't alone, as she saw others with him: Glyde, Gutsman and Iceman. All of them went on into a fury, striking down the Navis that hid in the shadows, attacking them and deleting them. It looked as if they would be stopped._

_"Roll-chan! I am coming for..." Gutsman shouted out but then stopped and she could see something sticking through his chest... blades of ice. To her and the others' horror, Gutsman was deleted. She saw Rockman turn around and face his killer. "Freezeman!"_

_"Gospel sends its regards Rockman," Freezeman sneered as more and more Navis started to come out of the shadows. "Now prepare to be deleted!"_

_She tried to move, tried to break free but couldn't. She was held back, always told that she was weak and pathetic, made to watch as the Navis down upon her friends like locusts. She saw Iceman was the next to fall, a terrible way to be deleted as many Stompers came down upon him, crushing the area he was standing in. There was no way for anything to have survived._

_Glyde was next as she watched him get stabbed from behind by a sword wielding Navi and then obliterated by cannon fire._

_"Stop it! Stop it!" she screamed out. All she got was evil laughter from her captors._

_"Why? It's so much fun! Don't you love the show! After all, we didn't kill you before just so you could watch with us!" one of them sneered. "Don't you like your front row seats, defect?"_

_"BASTARDS!!!" Rockman roared as went into his Style Changes, fighting almost like a berserker, taking out more viruses and Navis than he had ever done before in his life._

_But as he switched to Heat Guts, he was unprepared for Freezeman blasting him hard through his chest._

_"NO!!!" she screamed out as she saw Rockman fall down hard with Freezeman walking towards him, stalking him._

_"The Mighty Rockman," Freezeman mocked him. "How low you have fallen... all because of this weak worthless femme defect you care for so much. She's your greatest weakness and she gives no benefits at all. Why else was she abandoned by her operator like this?"_

_"Roll... chan..." Rockman muttered as Freezman picked him up._

_"No... please no..." she muttered softly, praying and praying that what was going to happen wouldn't happen. She wanted to break free, she wanted to fight, wanted to show these monsters just what she was capable of. Her grief over the loss of her friends was so much, as much as her inability to understand why Meiru-chan wouldn't contact her. But this... _Rock... I can't... I can't do anything... I want to... but I can't...__

_*Are you that pathetic?*_

__Nani?!_ she asked herself as she heard a female voice within herself._

_*Thinking you need saving when you have more than enough strength to save yourself. Yet you won't let go of what is necessary in order to gain that strength.*_

__I... I don't have...__

_*You do have strength, more than you think. All you have to do is let go, let go and let me in. Let me do what you refuse to do.*_

__I don't know who you are! Why should I--_ her thoughts interrupted as she was turned forward by the Navis that held her back to watch Freezeman, who just smirked at her, holding Rockman in one hand. His other hand had become a bladed ice sword--_

_*SLASH!*_

_-- and in one fatal slash, Rockman lost his head. What she saw next was her best friend dissolve into digital dust._

_"ROCKMAN!!! NOOOOOO!!!" she screamed out in agony. Her tortured scream was music to the villains ears as she heard them laughing at her, laughing at what they did._

_"Well defect... should I even kill you now... or leave you laying around the Net to feel agony for all eternity," Freezeman sneered, "giving the command to all Navis never to delete you so that you can always be in agony, knowing you're just a defective Navi that shouldn't have ever been created. A joke!"_

__Bastard... Bastard... I want him ... I want him deleted!!!_ she cursed. _I don't care any more! I WANT THEM ALL DELETED!__

_She let go of it all, of her morals, her ethics, her fighting. She just let go and surrendered herself to the darkness._

_And from there was a howl like that of a pack of wolves, energy that swirled all around, breaking apart the area around her, freeing her from her captors, who were damaged as a result of being too close._

_"What... what is..." Freezeman asked as he looked at where his victim had been only not to see her there. "Where are..." He suddenly stopped as he felt his 'heart' stopping. He looked down and saw a pink-gloved hand sticking out of his chest, with five long red nails partially in his processor._

_"Defective am I?" she asked, her voice no longer her own, more adult and huskier, showing the signs of anger and venom directed at Freezeman. "Tell me, could a defect do THIS!" She squeezed his core in her hands and he screamed out in pain, "Good! Scream! Scream until you make me smile! Now its your turn to feel pain, you poor bastard!"_

_The other Navis went rushing towards her but she removed her right hand from his chest, still holding his core. "As long as I don't let go you can't be deleted yet, and don't worry Freezeman, you'll be the very last one to be deleted!" With her other hand she pulled out a whip and started whipping at the Navis. At first it looked like a leather whip, but then it grew pink spikes... spikes that dug into them, causing them much pain. She yanked back and ripped out part of their bodies with that one shot._

_"Hahahahahahaha! Now this is fun!" she laughed sadistically. "Come on! Dance for me! Dance for the Queen now you stupid puppets!"_

_"DIE!!!" one of the Navis came right in to her face but then found himself without a head as her hair extensions decapitated him._

_"Weak!" she sneered. "You had the gall to call me pathetic when you can't even keep up with me! Is the only way you can win is when you are cheep with sneaking around!" She saw one of them taking up a large cannon, trying to get ready to blast at her, so she rushed the Navi, jumping into a spinning corkscrew kick, her high heels out forward._

_When she connected with his chest, it was as if she had gone through tissue paper. She took his cannon before he was deleted and then fired it off, the recoil making her fall down, but the amount of Navis deleted because of the blast made her smile. In fact she started to laugh. "Wow! Now this is definitely a keeper!"_

_"Time to die, witch!"_

_She looked up and saw the ten remaining Navis around her in a circle, looking as if ready to delete her, yet she still had on an annoying smirk on her face. "Anyone want to know what the weather is like today?"_

_"Wha? The weather?" one of them asked as they suddenly heard what could only be thunder. They looked on at the femme and saw she now starting to radiate electricity all over._

_"Yeah... its going to be storming... Lightning Blast!!!" she roared as lightning struck every last one of them, frying them all into digital dust._

_"... how... how can this be..."_

_She heard Freezeman's voice, weak as it was calling out to her. She stalked him now, just as he stalked Rockman. "How does it feel to be prey? Do you feel fear?"_

_"Please... mercy..." Freezeman pleased. "I won't ever..."_

_*CRASH!*_

_"AHHHHHH!!!" Freezeman cried out in agony as she crushed his right arm._

_"Mercy... MERCY?!" she roared in outrage. "Why should I show YOU mercy when you showed me none!" She smashed his other arm by stomping on it with her right boot. "Why should I show you mercy when you had my friends deleted right before my eyes!" A vicious kick to his left side followed by jump onto his back caused cracks to appear. "Why should I show you any mercy when you deleted Gutsman!" Another snapping of limbs could be heard as she took Freezeman out by his knees. She looked down at him, wishing to feel satisfaction, but in her heart all she felt was pain. Pain and ache for the one that mattered most of all._

_Lifting the Gospel Navi up by the throat with her free hand, she glared at him hatefully. "Why should I show you any mercy... when you DELETED Rockman!!!"_

_"... It wasn't like... it was personal to me..." Freezeman uttered. "It was... just my orders..."_

_For a moment she didn't do anything. After that moment, she put his core back inside of him. The pain lessened for him, but then felt her gripping his shoulders._

_"You made it personal for me when you deleted my friends in front of my face!" she roared. "So it is only fair I return the favor... DELETE!!!"_

_When she said those words she just pulled with each arm in the opposite direction, her nails dug deep into Freezeman's body. For twenty long seconds he felt nothing but excruciating pain, perhaps meant to drag out his pain._

_After that he knew nothing else... for he had been torn in half... literally._

_She tossed the two halves of Freezeman to the ground as if they were trash, trash that soon deleted itself. There was no emotion on her face for a few moments. Then slowly but surely a smile appeared on her face, a smile that turned into laughter. Hideous, joyous laughter that became worse as she threw her head back and laughed out even more until..._

* * *

"NO!!!" Roll cried out from her PET, waking up from her recharge period. She covered her mouth at once and then looked around, seeing her operator still in her bed, still sound asleep. She fell back in her place, very shaken up.

__Not again. Now its every night.__ Roll cried to herself, __Every night I have... 'it'. The people involved always change, but the result is always the same. Rockman, Gutsman, Glyde, Iceman... all of them deleted. Why... why do I have to have it?!__

She knew once again she couldn't find an answer. Yet the worst part, the worst part was what she feared herself becoming. Something she had feared ever since the N1 Grand Prix, when Mahajorama had posed as Higure and given Meiru-chan... that chip.

The Devil Chip.

When Meiru-chan had used it on her, she felt her entire essence being flooded with a darkness that she never felt. She knew there was evil in the world, but never before had she been exposed to such raw dark emotions. What happened to her as a result of the chip made her become totally flipped. Everything and everyone she loved she hated and visa versa.

Her time as 'Devil Roll' was hazy to remember some times, she preferred if she could just forget about it all together, but she couldn't. And for that she could remember herself fighting Rockman, wanting to delete him so badly and she hated Meiru-chan with a passion.

__But I love Meiru-chan so much. I don't want to ever lose her...__ Roll thought to herself but looked down to the ground. __... but would she want me... if I became something like... that devil?__

That first night after she was brought back to normal, she had the dream in its first incarnation. After Pharohman was taken care of, she didn't have a single dream.

Not until Gospel started its attack upon the world, picking up where the World Three left off and perhaps even more extreme than them. It started off slowly, once a week, but now it was every day.

__I can't do this... I can't keep on living like this.__ Roll said to herself. She had to get this out, she had to talk to someone but then she couldn't talk to the people that she knew. They would tell Meiru-chan and then she would worry. Even if that wasn't the case, her friends would be biased in their interpretation of what they thought she was going through.  
  
__Rockman might think I'm just crazy...__ Roll sighed, __Gutsman will try his best to cheer me up but that's not what I want. Glyde and Iceman wouldn't help much at all. Just who could I go to that could possibly...__ She froze as she realized she knew the perfect person to ask for their opinion.  
  
Checking to make sure she was plugged into the Net, she made her way to the Internet City.  
  
She had a message to post on the boards, and could only hope the Navi it was meant for would come.

**To Be Continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I do not own Rockman/Megaman. It belongs to Capcom. This story takes place after Episode 36 of the Rockman.EXE series, which is in the beginning of the Gospel Saga.****_

**The Dark Half  
By David Knight**

**Chapter Two: The Meeting**

Blues transited into the Internet City at the location that the message said for him to arrive. He was alone this time, both in the net and without his operator as Enzan was sleeping now.

_Still I am curious, why would she ask to talk to me?_ Blues asked himself.

"Blues-san."

Blues turned around and saw the one that called for him on the boards, "Roll."

Roll walked over to him, "Thank you for coming. I..."

"Why did you call me?" Blues asked straightforward. "And at this hour? Why me instead of someone else?"

Roll sighed before giving her answer, "Because I can't share this with anyone else. I need someone to give me a real objective opinion."

Blues said nothing, but was curious as to what she was meaning.

"You remember the N1, and how during that the World Three ended up taking control me by tricking Meiru-chan into using the Devil Chip," Roll stated, "Right after that, I started to have nightmares... but they faded after Pharaohman was destroyed. But now... now with what Gospel's doing they are coming back..."

"That's what you called me for," Blues snorted, "Tell me about a bad dream." He turned away from her, "What a waste of time."

Roll felt like she had been slapped in the face, her anger rising then along with all of her bottled up emotion, she let loose on the first being available and that was Blues, "Baka! Do you have any idea what it's like to see the ones that matter to you get deleted every time you recharge!" that stopped Blues, but Roll didn't pay it any mind as she just kept shouting, "To see everyone one you could possibly care about be tortured and torn to bits while you were mocked and laughed at, called worthless and pathetic!"

"... what else?" Blues asked, slowly turning back to her, "There's something more to this hell you are telling me, isn't there?"

".... when they are all gone, I hear a voice from inside me, telling me to accept it. Telling me to accept what is inside of me but refuse to use," Roll said slowly, "When I do, I... change. It's me and its not me. Its like I've become the devil all over again. I go in and attack all of the monsters that had hurt me, deleted my friends... and I delete them slowly, painfully, showing no mercy at all!"

She paused for a bit, trying to collect herself again as she wanted to get this all out, "The truth is, I feel it. Even now, there's something in side of me, something I never even knew I had until I experienced the Devil Chip. I'm so afraid of changing, of becoming that Devil again or something even worse. Something that will hate Meiru-chan..." her voice was breaking now, "Or... I become something... that she would hate. That she would want to delete as soon as she saw ..."

"You're being stupid."

Roll looked up at Blues, angered once more by him yet before she could speak, he beat her to it. "No matter what you become, your operator will still care for you, still want you. She proved that during the N1 when you were the Devil. She kept trying to get you back. She cares for you Roll. Just like Netto cares for Rockman... and how Enzan-sama cares for me."

"Blues..." Roll breathed.

"If you ever have any more fears about your nightmares, just remember what I said." Blues said and then he left her alone.

Roll stood there for a moment, letting herself absorb what Blues had told her. It was definitely something to think about.

For now though, it was time to head on home. She needed to finish recharging and Meiru-chan would need her tomorrow.

_I just hope everything will be fine._ Roll hoped.

-----

Shuryou Gospel sat down in his chair looking at his computer screen, at the man that had the gall to actually try to hack into his own systems to request a meeting.

Shuryou had to admit that the man had initiative. Though as of yet he showed him nothing that gave him reason to do what he was asking for. "Why should I allow you, someone I've never seen before, to join Gospel?"

"Because I am the best at what I do," the man said to Shuryou.

"And what would that be?"

"Deleting Navis." the man said, pulling up a file for Shuryou could see.

"A large delete count," Shuryou admitted, "Yet that means absolutely nothing to me without knowing the strength of all those Navis and their operators. For all I know, they could have been weaklings."

"I wouldn't be trying to contact you if I hadn't deleted at least some extremely experienced Navis."

Shuryou thought about that for a moment before speaking again, "Very well. I shall allow you to join Gospel if you can pass one simple test. One that with your 'illustrious delete record' should be able to accomplish."

"What's the test?"

Shuryou's lips curved into a smile, "Delete Rockman."

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
